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Progress in the Blu-ray world: Sharp Japan announced [press release in English] the VR-100BR1 today, the world’s first Blu-ray disc that’s compatible to the BDXL format. In other words, you’ll soon be able to store up to 100GB of data on the three-layer discs, twice as much as the capacity conventional dual discs have.

Sharp says the 100GB are enough to store about 720 minutes of terrestrial digital broadcasting. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the new Blu-rays are only compatible with two new recorders Sharp plans to roll out in Japan at the end of this month.

And needless to say, Japan will get these discs first, namely on July 30. Sharp is expected to market the discs for $55 each.